[UPS] eprints.org and OpenArchives

[Simeon Warner]

To UPS list and eprints.org:

Browsing the eprings.org blurb at
  http://www.eprints.org/index.html and
  http://www.eprints.org/software.html,
I'm concerned by the statment on the software page (bullet 3)
which says:

" The archive administrator can also decide that metadata is held about
each EPrint. This is decided in three or four stages:
  1. Decide a maximal set of metadata fields that should be stored (for
  example, "authors", "title", "journal", "journal volume", etc.)  
  2. Decide what types of EPrint should be stored (for example, refereed
  journal article, thesis, technical report, unpublished preprint)
  3. For each EPrint type, decide which metadata fields should be stored
  for EPrints of that type, and which of those fields are mandatory.
  4. (Optionally, for interoperability) decide how these metadata fields
  map to the Santa Fe set "

While the home page proudly touts the EPrints software as `fully
interoperable', point 4 above makes interoperability sound like
something one could think about, given a rainy day with nothing
else to do. 

Even with nice software, a multitude of non-interoperable archives is
little better than a collection individual web-sites and we are back to
generic web search engines. I urge the EPrints team to make a much
stronger statement about the benefits of (need for) interoperability, and
hence support for the Santa Fe metadata set.

I think the availability of generic archive software is a good thing
but would hate to see it lead to the creation of large numbers of
non-interoperable archives.

--
Simeon Warner